TBD

"Promise not to tell mom."

Melora's eyes flared at the request. That couldn't mean anything good. "If it's not something to be spoken of in mixed company, I should point out-"

"I may have a demon in my brain."

Melora paused, reeling, calculating, and quickly making peace with the reality of her situation. "Give me a moment to grab my coat."

She left the door open a crack, and Selina heard someone else's voice in her room. "Who's that?" the voice asked, and it was--kind of familiar? But not very.

Melora responded in hushed tones, as if Selina couldn't hear "I'll be a while, you can sleep here if you want." With a satisfied hum, the woman seemed to take up the offer, presumably already in bed. Melora emerged, wrapped in a simple robe, and closed the door behind her. It wasn't for modesty--not Melora, if anyone--but it was mighty chill at midnight, and she didn't feel like shifting into a bear or something.

"Where--?" Selina started, but Melora hushed her.

"You are the warchief. No signs of weakness. Not a word." It felt almost like her mother's admonition, and some very tired part of her wanted to protest, to protect her ego, but...

She yawned.

Three days now. Not a wink. It was maddening. But necessary. Curse that witch.

The city was set into valleys, partially natural, and partially formed by earth magic. The bulk of the structures were built there, but the narrow canyons connecting them were dense with market stalls, shops, and low-rent apartments, as natural high-traffic thoroughfares. Through one of these they wended, the stars and moonlight abandoning them to gloom. Places like this weren't all that safe at night, not that either had anything to fear, but dark canyons are spooky enough without a hundred spikes and a thousand eyes in the dark looming over you.

Maybe it was paranoia, or hallucination, but Selina kept seeing eyes, and movement, and shadows jumping at her. She was sweating in the cold, dry air, and had an insatiable itch growing across her patterns, still hidden by her magic, but perhaps threatening to emerge. In such a state, she was literally starting to fall asleep in mid-stride, only to snap back at the precipice of consciousness, enough to stumble like a drunkard.

"Great party, hey warchief!" she heard someone shout approvingly, although it may well have just been her imagination. She was starting not to care either way.

Rather than emerge into the next valley, they were descending into the rock wall, underneath the mountain. The last of the light truly abandoned them, and the dim smell of volcanic gas and sulfur wafted up from below. The Depths, she thought. We're going to the water...?

Great Crag sat above a caldera, an ancient one in the process of receding, having formed the mountains protecting the city millions of years ago. As it cooled and receded, it left behind vast craters, which filled with water over thousands of years, mixing with chemicals forged in the heat of magma, and dissolved sediment from the inside rock walls. The heat of the caldera warmed the water, and it formed a natural hot spring beneath the city. A toxic, dangerous hot spring in a lightless cavern--not exactly a vacation destination.

Except for the city's aquatic inhabitants, or rather, the few exotic ones that could handle the relatively extreme environment. No little mermaids here, just some bizarre fish-people who look like the creatures at the bottom of the abyss.

Images of her dream under the sea flickered into her mind, and she wasn't sure if they were memories or dreams. Well, they were memories of dreams. What does that make them? No dreaming! she chided herself vainly.

"Wait here," her sister whispered, and thought after a couple seconds to turn back and take her hand again. "Nevermind. Can't risk you falling asleep."

They walked into the shallows of the water. It was like a warm bath, and kind of soothing, if you could ignore the smell (which may have been intensifying the hallucinations). Once up to her waist, she wanted for all the world to flop down, floating in the salty water, like a sensory deprivation chamber. The perfect bed.

Her sister was a dolphin. That one required a couple of double-takes, and a good eye-rubbing. No, she really was a dolphin, she heard the clicking and could feel her wet, rubbery skin. "I can't follow you down there," she cautioned, unsure of Melora's intent. Was this really Melora? Was she following some half-mad dream around, beckoning her into the void? Was the warchief going to drown to death from fatigue on her second day in office?

You'd think if anyone drowned me to death, it would be the siren. Or...maybe it is her? She squinted again, trying to remember if she'd heard any alluring music. Maybe a drumbeat or two. But then it wouldn't even have to be music, would it. But why would she drown me to death? She has no reason to. Unless she's pregnant, and she's going to hollow me out and-

And something emerged from the deep.

He was scaly, with great big, black eyes, with double lids. His gills ran from the throat, around his back, and down between each rib, their...gill-flaps? gill-meat?...slowly stacking and compressing as the water drained from them. He was...definitely male, as his lower half emerged, but he did have legs, if rather cresty and finned. His feet were under the black water, but he seemed stable enough to be standing on two feet.

The dolphin stopped clicking, and stopped being a dolphin. "Abe," she said, "this is Selina. Your new warchief."

Selina was blinking, stretching her eyes in the way you do when you're so desperate to not look like you're falling asleep in a meeting that you don't realize how fricking obvious it is that you already have, several times. That gave him time to, awkwardly, and evidently with some discomfort, clear his...lungs?...of water. He couldn't seemingly switch from water-clicks to air-words without some deference to the laws of physics, it seemed. More credit to Melora, who can do it in a mouse's...butt? No wait, what's the adage? Two shakes of a...rabbit's tail? Cat?

I'm losing it, she thought to herself, then some other half of her brain finished erecting a rickety Indiana Jones bridge to the current half, so it could finally deliver its message. It's Abraxes!

"Ab? Abax? Tabaxi?" Her words were slurring. The earth was spinning.

"Cleanse the air," he commanded, his voice still sounding like there was water in there somewhere. Maybe it always sounded that way. Melora reached for the elements, and the air swirled obligingly. That smell was gone, at any rate. "She's exhausted. What is this?"

"A witch's curse," she said, not at all joking. He cocked a head at her, but took it seriously. "Yes, that one. She hasn't slept for days. Says there's a demon in her head. She's just...lit up with magic, I can't tell one aura from the next."

His dark eyes shone with arcane light, and for a moment, she could see their depth, both the vast, alien complexity of his low-light abyssal orbs, but into the depths beyond, into his very soul--

Then he turned his gaze away, analyzing her body, her clothes, what she was carrying. "Not so powerful it can't be nullified. But if it's one of the three. There must have been a reason. Did the matron have anything to say?"

Melora just gave him a cocked half-shrug, and he nodded. "Doesn't know," he acknowledged.

"And time is of the essence, no doubt. It's a good thing I have some essence of time." Like a magician, he produced some strangely-glowing dust, from one of his grand total of zero pockets. It shone in the eighth color, the one just beyond the seven you know, the ones that can possibly exist. "Quintessence. Spread it in a circle on the land, and lie her down."

Melora carried her--her legs had become useless at some point she didn't remember--while Abe emerged fully from the water. Rather than sloughing it off, he sloughed it up, schlorping some quantity of water into a sort of water-suit, clinging to him everywhere but his head, magically staying in the shape of his body, plus a couple inches. Neat, she thought, with considerable effort.

As she lay on the warm stone, craggy and uncomfortable, it may as well have been a bed of clouds and roses. In the half-second after Melora let go, and before Abe replaced her, she'd almost fallen asleep.

"I apologize for this, but it's necessary." With her lying prone and face-up, he cradled her head, and water rushed from his water-suit and directly up her face. Immediately, there was panic. What adrenaline her heart could find in the couch cushions surged through her veins. In an instant, she became certain she was drowning, and thrashed in a raw fight-or-flight response. Her body, weakened by exhaustion and half-comatose with toxic air, couldn't really put up much of a fight, and in her panic, she didn't think of a single spell or magic trick, just pure survival.

But it was only a moment. She was still a warlord, and a warchief, and a witch's daughter, and by the hells, she wouldn't go down like a chump. The deepest core of her will turned to iron, commanded her spasming monkey brain to shut the hell up, and focused all her remaining mental energy into a spell. A simple spell, one she'd learned as a young girl: the ability to command the elements. That water was going to get the hell out.

As she summoned her power, she could feel the occult athame within her arm as it focused and amplified her Vitae. And Abe could see it.

"Now," he said, and time...stopped.